Episode 8: The Price
by JPC
Summary: Buffy finally gives Spike a chance. She thinks she may even love him. But don't expect a happy ending. As Spike tells Buffy, "with us, nothing is easy." Meanwhile, Dawn and Connor have their first fight. And a new batch of scary demons who give new meanin


Buffy finally gives Spike a chance. She thinks she may even love him. But don't expect a happy ending. As Spike tells Buffy, "with us, nothing is easy." Meanwhile, Dawn and Connor have their first fight. Also, Spike and Xander each try to come to terms with the knowledge that Angel is Connor's father. And, of course, scary demons galore.

Finally, the teenage lovebirds could be alone. No parents, no brothers and sisters, no friends to get in the way. Marcus and Emily were all alone in Emily's bedroom. They had been waiting for this moment. And then the moment was dashed. They heard a car in the driveway. Emily looked out her window of her family's one-story ranch house. "It's my dad!," she told Marcus.

Marcus was not about to get caught in Emily's bedroom by her father. He had an older sister, and knew how protective fathers could be of their teenage daughters. He went to the window at the back of Emily's room and opened it. "Come on, he won't find us," he told his girlfriend. He took her by the hand and they both went out the window into Emily's back yard. Then they ran into the pine forest behind the property. When they were deep enough in the woods to be safe, they stopped.

"All clear. All alone. No one to catch us," Marcus told Emily. "Gotta tell ya, I really like the danger. Makes every moment even better." Marcus then grabbed Emily and kissed her. She was also a little turned on by the danger. And there was something romantic about the two of them, in the dark, out in the forest primeval.

But then about thirty seconds later Emily heard a howl. She stopped kissing Marcus and looked worried. "Marcus, I heard something. It sounded like a wolf."

"It's probably just a coyote. I see them in my backyard all the time. They're harmless," Marcus responded as he kissed Emily's neck and tried to get her back in the mood. "There's nothing out here to be scared of," Marcus added as he nibbled her earlobes. "Except maybe your father, and he ain't gonna find us way out here."

Emily acquiesced. She knew it was childish to fear things that go bump in the night. She went back to kissing Marcus. But right when things got all hot and steamy and moany, she heard two more howls. They were much louder than the first howl she had heard.

Emily pushed Marcus away. "Now you had to hear that. That was no coyote," she told him.

Marcus still did not want to believe they were in danger. "Emily, I know we're in the woods in the dark, which makes even me a little wiggish. But we're not exactly in the wilderness. I mean, look, we can see the lights from the houses. This is the suburbs. People don't get attacked by wild animals in the suburbs."

At that moment a beast leaped up onto Marcus's chest and knocked him to the ground. It quickly ripped open his throat and sunk its jaws into his chest. Emily screamed, and a few seconds later a second beast came up and bit her in the thigh. It held on and dragged her away. She tried to hold onto the tree next to her, but it was no use. The beast dragged her away, her fingernails desperately clawing the dirt.

The next morning, Buffy and Dawn were in the kitchen eating breakfast. Buffy had a question for her sister. "Over the last few days, you've been a bit, well, glowy is the best word I can come up with. There's a new bounce in your step. Well, more than a bounce. More like you're walking on air. Something you want to tell me?"

"Really, you noticed?," Dawn answered. "I didn't know it was that obvious. But, yes, if you must know, something has changed. I'm in love with Steven."

"That's really amazing," Buffy sarcastically replied. "A couple days ago, you were pretty passionate about telling me you didn't love Steven. So what changed? No wait, I know what changed. You found out what Steven was. Guess that kind of thing runs in this family."

Dawn couldn't disagree more. "Please Buffy, get over yourself. The world does not revolve around you. Now, I know you have the hots for guys that bite. I'm not criticizing. What a demon and a consenting adult – or even a consenting non-adult, as was once the case with you – do behind closed doors is their own business. But in case you haven't noticed, Steven's human. I don't care who his parents are. I mean, technically, I don't even have parents."

Buffy tried to cool things down. She decided to let Dawn's little dig at her love life slide. "I see it now. You're right. Knowing Steven's past didn't make you love him. You always loved him. You just never admitted it to yourself. I say something about him which you take to be an insult, and you turn violently protective. Like the time last month you knocked my head into that tree. You attack anyone who impugns him, even your own sister. That's love."

Dawn still disagreed. "No, that's not love. That's just letting people know when they should shut up. You were on the right track before. It was last Monday night I fell in love with him. Not because of the vampire stuff. But because, like me, Steven was thrown into a world he didn't feel a part of. He knows what it's like to feel truly alone, to believe that no one can understand you. He's felt exactly what I've felt. We understand each other like no one else can. Realizing we had this bond, this amazing bond, that's what made me love him."

Of course, much of what Dawn said could apply to any teenage couple. All teenagers feel alone and believe no one can understand them. And teen love is all about believing no one, not your friends, not your parents, not your siblings, can understand you like your lover can. Of course, the circumstances of Dawn's and Connor's lives had astronomically magnified these ordinary teen emotions. 

That afternoon, Connor walked into Sunnydale High School around the time he knew the school day ended. Hundreds of students streamed into the halls. How to find only one of them was the problem, especially since Connor did not know where Dawn's locker was. He walked up and down the halls. The girls turned their heads to get a look, but he didn't notice them. Finally, he saw her. She was alone. Janice and Brandon were off in a certain janitor's closet Brandon had recently discovered.

Knowing Dawn loved him had made Connor bold, made him feel like nothing could stand in his way. Made him enter a large building where all the noisy kids and the frequently ringing bells scared him. Connor walked up to Dawn from behind, put his hands over her eyes, and asked "guess who?"

Dawn of course knew right away who it was. But she was a bit surprised. Such brazenness was not typical of Connor. "Steven, you're here! Why are you here? Please don't get me wrong, I love that you're here, but I've never seen you here before."

Steven said something he heard in a Kinks song. "I was so tired. Tired of waiting. Tired of waiting for you."

"I missed you too," Dawn replied. She grabbed his head and kissed him on the lips. "So, Steven, we haven't been out much in the daytime. What do you want to do?"

"I thought maybe we could go for a little walk," Steven replied, in a manner which made it apparent that "walking" was not what he had in mind.

"I could go for a nice walk right about now," Dawn said, knowing exactly what Connor had in mind. She closed her locker and put her backpack over her shoulder. Then she had a better idea. "Steven, can you carry this for me?" He could. And he did.

As the two of them walked out hand-in-hand some of the girls looked at Dawn and Connor in disbelief. He seemed so out of her league to them. Some of the guys started looking as well. Not to check out Connor (that was only a couple of the guys). But to look at Dawn a little differently than they had before. They noticed Dawn was in demand, which made her seem more alluring.

Janice and Brandon stepped out of the closet. "I told you school let out. Where's Dawn?," Janice said.

Brandon spotted her. "She's over there with Steven. I'm guessing that right now she doesn't want us around." A grinning Brandon opened the closet again and pulled the smiling Janice back in.

Lots of noise came from inside. It sounded like stuff falling. "Ow! Wait! Let me find the light," Brandon said. He turned the bulb on. "Okay, this is our spot, right over here." Then he turned the light back off.

Dawn and Connor made their way past the athletic fields. The starting football players who had the last period free had been out practicing for forty minutes. Connor looked down and saw what looked to him like heavily-armored men training for some sort of hand-to-hand combat. He put down Dawn's backpack and ran down the hill and onto the field. "Steven, no! You can't do that!," Dawn yelled. But it was too late.

The five starting offensive linemen were pushing a tackling sled which their coach stood on, urging them on. After being pushed 30 yards the sled ground to a halt. "Come on men!" the coach yelled. "You expect to win the county championships with that lollygagging! You don't think the players at Lincoln High are busting their butts while you suck wind!"

Connor walked up to the coach. "Can I try?," he innocently asked. The coach looked at this five foot six, 110 pound boy like he was nuts. "Can I try?," he asked again.

The five lineman started laughing. "Let's see if you can push around my jock strap first," one of them joked.

Connor looked serious. The coach thought this might provide his boys with a little comic relief. "Sure you can try son. Go ahead," he told Connor, smirking.

Connor stood in front of the middle of the sled. He put his shoulder to it, and ran. He drove the sled 20 yards back at an astoundingly rapid pace. Then he stopped and pushed the sled away. With this push, he sent the sled sliding an additional 15 yards. "Thanks. That was fun," he said to the coach. The coach was understandably stunned. This little runt had outperformed 5 linemen who weighed a combined 1200 pounds.

Connor started to walk away. The starting defensive nose tackle had just arrived on the field. He was going to teach this interloper a lesson. He strapped on his helmet. "Hey boy!," he yelled at Connor. The he ran right for him.

At the last minute Connor noticed the heavily armored man charging him. He bent his knees and drove his shoulder into the nose tackle as he was trying to run over Connor. Instead, Connor was unaffected by the collision, and the nose tackled was knocked to the dirt with tremendous force. Connor looked down at him. "Sorry about that. I didn't notice you were in my way." Connor reached down his right hand and grabbed the 250 pound player's left arm, pulling him back to his feet as if he were a toddler.

Connor walked back to Dawn. The other football players got out of his way, giving him a clear path. Among those who got out of his way were Alexandra's boyfriend, who was starting quarterback, and Sophie's boyfriend, who was starting free safety. Dawn laughed. A lot of girls she knew wanted to date one of the starters on the varsity football team. Her boyfriend could beat up the team's entire starting line-up. "I like that game," Connor said as he approached Dawn, picked up her backpack, and walked off with her.

"You really shouldn't do that," Dawn tried to explain. "It's not polite."

They walked to a tranquil spot in the woods, a spot which was about a mile from the spot where Emily and Marcus were killed and eaten the previous night. Of course they were not yet aware of these killings.

Connor put down the backpack and explained the meaning of this location. "This is where I slept, before I moved in with Xander. The night I first saw you, I came back here, put my head against this tree, and thought of you all night. You were all that mattered to me. You are still all that matters to me."

"Except now you can do more than just think about me," Dawn replied suggestively. Then she put her hands on Connor's chest and pushed him back into the tree. The entire Sunnydale football team couldn't make this guy budge an inch. But Dawn could throw him around like a rag doll. Connor rather liked it when she did. When his back hit the tree, he smiled. Dawn leaped at him, he put his arms around her, and they kissed. This was why Connor became so bold, why he wouldn't wait for patrolling to have a chance to be with Dawn.

"Steven's parents are what!?," Anya asked Spike over at the Magic Shop.

"Vampires," Spike responded.

Anya was digging a little deeper. "I know that! That's not what's so amazing. They're not just vampires. They're vampires who were kind of like parents to you. I mean, you've always had this whole Oedipal thing with Angel."

This hurt Spike. "Oh come on, that's rubbish. Bloody hell! That's sick, twisted, rubbish."

"Like you've never done anything sick and twisted," Anya joked. "You can't deny it. You wanted to kill Angel – your father – so you could have Drusilla – your mother – all to yourself. Your whole life since you came to Sunnydale has been one long series of unresolved daddy issues."

Spike did not want to hear this. "You don't know the first thing about vampires. Mother, father – that's bollocks. That's not how it works. There's no parenting. It's not a family. It's a club. Your sire is just the one who sponsored you for membership."

Anya thought this was a little shallow. "Oh, I get. Becoming a vampire is just like getting into a country club, a country club with eternal lifetime membership, and the membership fee is your soul. Now that's – what's that crude term you like to use? – bollocks."

Spike defended his arguments. "Sure, it does sound bloody ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as all your talk about vampire families. I killed Dru. Does that make me guilty of matricide? Come on!"

"No it doesn't," Anya answered, appearing to agree with Spike. You're human. Drusilla is no longer you mother. Buffy is."

Spike took a few seconds to absorb the absurdity of this. "Okay, now I know you're not just off your rocker. You're certifiably bonkers. Now how, just how, do you explain this nonsense."

"It's not nonsense," Anya told Spike. "It's sense. It's rather good sense. You became human because of Buffy. Dru was your sire because if it wasn't for her you would never have become a vampire. Buffy is you sire because if it wasn't for her you would never have become human."

Spike resisted her logic. "In case you haven't noticed, Buffy had nothing to do with me becoming human. I did that on my own, thank you very much. And she wasn't crazy about the whole beating heart thing when I came back. She kind of never wanted to see me again. Some sire!"

Anya dropped the subject, with a parting shot. "Fine, right-o, I get your point. You are incapable of understanding my brilliant, penetrating reason. No problem. I will drop this topic, rather than overburden your puny little non-genius brain."

This was so hyperbolic Spike did not even feel the need to respond. "Anya, the thing is, the fact that Steven's parents are vampires I knew very well is not the most shocking thing about him. Not by a longshot. Apparently, your massive genius brain failed to do a little simple arithmetic. It failed to ask a rather obvious question: if Angel has a 16 year-old son, why the bloody hell have we never heard a thing about him?"

"Yes, that is odd," Anya responded. "I was too busy tormenting you by channeling Sigmund Freud to think of that."

Spike explained. "The reason why we have never heard a thing about Steven is because he was born one year ago."

"What was it, his special vamp genes made him grow faster?," Anya asked.

"Not even close," Spike answered. "Sometime this past Spring, when our Steven was still a little baby, he was taken from Angel and sent to another dimension. 16 years later, he returned. It had only been a month or so in our world."

"Ah, yes, dimensional travel," Anya commented. "I should have thought of that, because I've done a little cross-dimensional travel myself. The time differences can be quite amazing. Of course, as a Vengeance Demon, it meant nothing to me, since I was immortal and all."

"So you're familiar with the whole concept," Spike replied. "Good, cause I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it. You ever been to Quor-toth?"

Anya was holding a roll of quarters, about to bang it into the counter to break the wrapper. When she heard these words, she slammed the roll into the counter and quarters flew in all directions. "Is that where Steven grew up?"

"I think that's what he said. So you know of the place."

"Yes. I've heard of it. Never been there. It's supposed to be impossible to travel there from this dimension. For a reason. It's the dimension that is so terrifying even demons can barely bring themselves to speak its name. To be sent there, as a baby. I can't imagine what Steven's been through. If he survived there 16 years, he couldn't have gone alone."

"He told me he was taken there by a man name Holtz," Spike said.

"A mortal human man?," Anya asked.

"Yes, of course," Spike answered. "Remember, this Holtz died before Steven came here."

"My God, my God," a stunned Anya muttered. "That's miracle. For a human being to raise a baby to be a man in that place is unthinkable. It's like walking across Antarctica stark-naked. But Steven's here, so it must have happened. My God."

"Explains it lot, you have to admit," Spike added. "I mean, that must be why he's so tough, why he has no fear. I saw him fight that dragon. It was like he was playing cricket, and hitting sixes off every pitch. He killed that thing without even getting a scratch on him. And this Quor-toth thing, that explains his whole raw meat feast afterwards."

Finally, Anya agreed with Spike. "Yes, yes, it would. Steven would have had to fight, and hunt, the horrible monsters that populated that place, probably since he learned to walk. It's the savagest of places. Honestly, I'm surprised he turned out so normal. It's amazing he didn't come out of that place as a savage himself."

About an hour-and-a-half after they arrived in the woods, Dawn let go of Connor. He was rather surprised. "Is something wrong? Is it something I did?," he asked her.

"No. No, of course not," Dawn replied. "But it's getting late."

"And you have something better to do?," Connor arrogantly asked. Getting all this action had made him a little cocky.

"It's not like that. It's just, I'm supposed to meet Janice at my house in a few minutes. If she goes there and I don't show up, that would be really rude. She's my best friend."

"And what am I, something less important?," Connor brashly asked.

"I love you Steven. You know that. You make me so happy, I never like saying goodbye to you. But you're not the only person I care about. I love this. I love us. But I have to have a life outside of this relationship."

"What we have, this relationship, it is my life," Connor told Dawn, trying to play the I-love-you-more-than-you-love-me game.

Dawn decided to placate her lovesick man. "I'm not going anywhere. We'll see each other later tonight," Dawn told Connor as she put her hands on his chest. "Come by round ten. We'll patrol. You like that, don't you?" Dawn said before kissing Connor.

"I love patrolling," Connor replied. "Except, sometimes the vampires are very rude, and they interrupt us."

"But we always make them pay, don't we?," Dawn told Connor. She kissed him again. He put his hands on her head and kissed her. After about ten seconds Dawn finally forced herself to leave.

Connor slid down to the ground and sat with his back against the tree, just like he did after he first saw Dawn. He smiled. Everything was perfect. He realized he had an hour to kill before dinner, so he went over to the Magic Shop.

At the same time, Janice stopped kissing Brandon. Janice left the janitor's closet, and Brandon followed her. "What's wrong?," he asked her.

"Nothing's wrong. But I'm supposed to go to Dawn's now."

"I think Dawn's got other things to do," Brandon replied.

"But I promised. We're supposed to meet at her house. If she's there, and I don't turn up, she'll be mad."

"I see you not showing up as a win-win situation," Brandon argued. Dawn gets to spend more time with Steven. And you get to spend more time with me. You do like spending time with me?"

Janice was opening her locker. "Of course I do, Brandon. I love every second with you. Every kiss, every touch. It's like a dream come true." She smiled, grabbed him, and kissed him again. Then she stopped. "But that's exactly why I want to go see Dawn. We're best friends. We talk about these kinds of things."

Brandon was perplexed. "You'd rather talk about kissing me than actually kiss me?"

"Oh, Brandon, you know I don't mean it that way. Just, it's getting late. And if we spend every minute of the day together, it won't be as special. I like to let you loose for a few hours. And then come back, and see the anticipation, the hunger, in your eyes. It's like when you called me the morning after the dance because you had to hear my voice. I loved that." Janice took out her backpack and closed her locker.

"So that's the reason. You love to torture me," Brandon concluded. "Strangely, I could see myself really getting into that. The leather, and chains. Maybe later you can tie me up." He was only partly joking.

"Come by my house at nine. My parents will think we're up in my room studying.' You can see how you like me as Mistress of Pain then." Janice was joking. Well, perhaps not entirely.

She kissed him goodbye. Brandon looked down the hall. The evening janitor had arrived. He was opening up his closet to get out his mop and bucket. Looked to Brandon like he and Janice left that closet just in time.

Janice got in her car. On the way to Dawn's house, she stopped to pick up their pictures from the Homecoming Dance. She arrived at Dawn's about a minute after Dawn came home.

Connor entered the Magic Shop. Anya ran over to him and gave Connor a big bear hug. Knowing that Connor grew up in a hell dimension, she had the urge to mother him. "Steven, I'm so glad to see you. You're such a wonderful, brave, well-adjusted young man."

Connor was rather shocked by Anya's unprecedented show of severe affection. "Uh, thanks, I guess. It's, uh, great to see you too, Anya." He looked over Anya's shoulder at Spike, giving Spike a "what's going on" look. Spike snickered. Maternal Anya was new to him, too.

Anya finally let go. Connor was a little short of breath. Spike explained. "Anya just found out where you grew up."

"I don't know why everyone reacts this way," Connor commented. "Everyone tells me it was some awful place. Well they haven't been there. And it wasn't. I was happy there. It was certainly better than Los Angeles."

"Ah! You didn't like LA much either. Never could stand the place myself," Spike joked. Connor laughed a little. "So I take it you're here to train?," Spike asked.

"Of course," Connor answered. "I'd like to try out those wooden things with the chains."

"Oh, you mean the nun-chucks," Spike explained as they walked into the training room. "They're mostly for show. You come at a demon with those and he'll laugh at you before breaking you in half."

"Remember Spike, this counts against your hours worked," Anya yelled. Of course, Spike didn't care.

"Actually Steven, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

Connor was always willing to listen to Spike. "What is it, Spike?"

"I've been thinking about your father, Holtz. Something about Angel killing him doesn't seem quite right."

"But you know how evil Angelus can be," Connor argued.

"Exactly. I know him better than anyone alive. I know how he operates. That's the thing. Now tell me, where did you find Holtz's body?"

"He was in the alley, with Justine."

"That's the problem," Spike began. "Justine is the one who told you it was Angelus, right?"

"Yes," Connor replied.

"So how did she know? Did she see Angel do it? Not bloody likely. Angel's very good about not letting witnesses get away. If she was there, he would have known. And he would have killed her as well. That would have been his favorite part. Watching the shock on Justine's face as she watches Holtz die. Seeing the fear in her eyes as Angel goes after her. That's what gets his rocks off."

This was one subject about which Connor would not listen to Spike. "How do you know what happened? You weren't there."

This was exactly what Spike wanted to hear. "You're right. I wasn't there. But neither were you, Steven. I'm sure that when you saw your father dead on the ground you were devastated, completely heartbroken. You hear that Angel did it. You believe that, since you know he's a killer and he had a lot of reasons to go after your father. You didn't ask Justine how she knew it was Angel, did you?"

"I didn't need to. I knew that Angel was going over to see my father that night. When I get there, my father's dead. It was pretty obvious who killed him."

Spike did not know about the meeting. Still, it did not make him reconsider his theories. "Yes, it would be obvious. But the obvious conclusion is not always the right one. Here's how I see it: Justine finds the body, sees the two neck wounds. Believes it's Angel's work. After all, she already thought he was evil. You come by. She tells you it was Angel. But Justine didn't see who killed your father. So she didn't know for sure that Angel did it. While I, well, I know for sure Angel didn't."

Connor turned Spike's arguments against him. "So you're arguing that only someone who saw the killing knows who did it. But you didn't see the killing. So how can you be so sure?"

"I don't know who killed your father. Never claimed to. But I know it wasn't Angel. I've seen him take lots and lots of lives. I know how he operates. Someone like Holtz – a lifelong enemy he knows very, very well – that's a First Division kill. A Man United, Leeds, Arsenal, FA championship kill. It would be real special to the bloke. He put all the time and effort and creativity he could into it. I mean, Angel's a killer, but to him killing's an art form. He takes pride in his work. He doesn't just bite his greatest nemesis and drop him in an alley. Never in a million years."

"Great. It's nice to know daddy was an artist," Connor added ruefully.

"Don't say that, Steven," Spike told Connor, trying to make him feel better. "You're not like that. He's not like that. Not now, anyway. You're brave and selfless and caring and passionately devoted to the people you love. Your dad's like that too. I've seen Angel go both ways. Back before I got my soul back, I hated him. Whenever I tried to be Big Bad, have some fun at the expense of humanity, he'd get in my way. If he hadn't, I wouldn't be here, talking to you, person-to-person."

Connor was extremely disappointed that Spike, a man he greatly respected, had joined the Angel Fan Club. "My father, my Christian father, warned me about this. Told me the Devil can assume appealing forms, and seduce even good people. In LA I met many who had been fooled by Angel. Guess he fooled everyone around here as well."

Spike made it clear where he stood regarding Angel. "I don't mean for you to gather that I like the guy. Believe me, I don't. When I got here, I hated Angel the Good. And when he made his big comeback, I really hated Angel the Bad. I still don't like either of them.

"For starters, you know about Angel and Buffy. I told you me and Buffy used to have a thing. Thing is, I love her. I'm crazy for her. But I don't have a chance. Her heart still belongs to Angel. He's still the only she can ever love. Now imagine Dawn couldn't love you because her heart belonged to someone else. How would you feel towards that guy, that certain someone else?"

Connor thought about Spike's question. He tried to put himself in Spike's position. He had never tried to feel jealousy before. Now that he had pretended to feel it, knew he could never handle the real thing. "If that was me, I couldn't go on. It just wouldn't be worth it. Spike, I had no idea. I'm so sorry. I can't imagine what you've been through."

This was an oddity – Connor feeling sorry for someone else's suffering. "I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. Bloody hell – that would be the day I couldn't go on living! You're 16. Every disappointment feels like it's the end of the world. But if it wasn't for all that longing I would never have gotten my soul back. I think I got the good end of that deal."

Connor now felt much closer to Spike. They both knew the emotional sturm und drang of romantic love. And not just that. They loved a pair of sisters! So Spike failed to convince Connor that Angel didn't kill Holtz. But he made Connor trust him even more. This would make it easier in the future for Spike to convince Connor that Angel did not kill Holtz.

Connor wasn't the type to get all mushy and bond while talking about girls. "It's getting late. I should be heading home for dinner."

Spike had something to tell Connor. "Steven, one more thing. If Angel killed Holtz, it would mean he had gone bad, become Angelus as you say. So when Angel came back to land, he'd still not have a soul. He'd still be Angelus, right? If that's the case, Drusilla would be the first one to have known about it. You noticed she has certain powers, knows certain things. When Angel loses his soul, she feels it. When I talked to her, before I killed her, she said Angel still had his soul. Dru was never wrong when it came to Angel."

Buffy came home from work a little after six. She heard Dawn and Janice chatting excitedly in Dawn's room. Buffy sat on the couch to watch tv and relax after eight hours at the Doublemeat Palace. About five minutes later Janice left and Dawn came downstairs.

"Buffy, you gotta see these! Our homecoming pictures came back. Look!"

Buffy looked.

"Here's me with Steven. Here's me with Janice. Here's Janice with Brandon. And here's the four of us together. Don't we look great?," Dawn asked.

Buffy looked at a few more pictures. Then she put her head in her hands and began to cry. Dawn didn't know what to make of this.

"Buffy, are you all right? Are those tears of joy? They doesn't sound like happy crying. Buffy, what's wrong?"

Xander was recounting his run-ins with Angel to Connor over dinner. Of course Xander put his own special spin on the stories.

"He puts Buffy in the hospital, then comes by with flowers to visit' her when she's sick. I step in front of him, look him right in the eyes. I tell him you wanna get to Buffy, you're gonna have to get past me first.' He laughs, says you think you can stop me?' I tell him maybe I can, maybe I can't. But I'm just dying to find out. How bout you?' He thinks it over, turns tail, walks out."

Connor was impressed with Xander's embellished tale. "Wow! You just stood him down. So what was it, he afraid of you?"

Xander laughed, realized he was laughing at himself, and quickly stopped laughing. "No. I mean, nothing's afraid of me. I can fight, but I'm much better at running and hiding. That thing with Angel, it wasn't cause I was deluded and believed I was some tough guy. I was shaking in my boots. But I knew Angel was a bully. He liked to hurt the helpless. Stand up to him, and most of the time he goes away to find something that won't put up much of a fight."

"That's my dad," Connor said with a depressing sigh. Xander noticed he wasn't helping, and tried to cheer Connor up.

"Steven, please, don't ever think of yourself like that. I knew your "dad" (it was tough for Xander to say) when he was bad, and I knew him when he was, um, not so bad. You're nothing like him. For starters, you seem to actually like me."

Connor had spent enough time around Xander to learn how to deploy self-deprecating sarcasm. "Well how else am I going to get all this free food?"

Xander appreciated it that the ever-so-serious Connor was developing a sense of humor. But at this moment, it was Xander who wanted to be serious. "What I mean to say is, see, Steven, I'm not crazy about my father either. What am I saying? I hate the guy. I've spent my whole life trying not to be like him. That's why we have fathers. So we can learn from their mistakes, and not make them ourselves."

Spike was home, watching Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape," where he plays a cool rebellious loner who risks his own life to save the lives of others. Dawn burst in. Spike was getting used to Summers women bursting into his crypt.

"I've spent of lot of time in here with you. We've talked about a lot of stuff. But do you remember me ever telling you it was okay for you to risk my life?"

Spike was taken aback by Dawn's bluntness. "Uh, um, well" was all he could manage.

Dawn fired another volley. "It's a simple question. Did I ever tell you to risk my life?," she asked him, with heavy emphasis on the words "I," "you," "my" and "life."

"Dawn I can explain" Spike began.

Dawn cut him off. "Explain! Explain what exactly? That you can think only about yourself? That you're so desperate to be the hero, so desperate to impress my sister, that you played Russian Roulette with my life?"

And then Dawn cracked. She realized what Buffy had realized. "Why did you do it!," she yelled at Spike, punching him in the chest. "Why? Why did you do this for me?" She stopped hitting Spike and instead put her arms around him. "Why me? Why me?"

Spike felt guilty because he had made Dawn feel guilty. This was precisely what he did not want to happen. "I didn't do it for you. You were right the first time. I did it for myself. I wanted to prove I still had it in me, that I wasn't helpless. Someone was going to kill this thing. If not me, then Buffy, or Steven, or you. I just wanted to get all the credit."

Spike pulled Dawn off of him, and looked at her. She was more composed, but still a bit teary-eyed. "Dawn, stop it. Please. All this whining, crying helplessness, it's not a good look for you. It's not you. You don't need to rely on others to protect you. You've done enough fighting, enough slaying, to know that. I just thought you deserved a night off. You're powerful. Just look at what you do to Steven. He's a bloody superboy, but around you he's helpless."

Dawn felt better. She realized that just because Spike chose to kill Gardar before it got to her didn't mean she was helpless. "I get it, Spike. You felt you owed me one after acting so crummy to me last year. And you were right. And you're also right about Steven. It is great how he like worships the ground I walk on. Oh no! That reminds me! I'm supposed to be meeting him!"

Dawn ran out and headed for home. Spike was happy, and a bit sore. He grabbed his bruised ribs where Dawn had struck him. The pain reminded him why it was a good idea not to get on the wrong side of either of the Summers women.

Spike opened a chest against the wall. The Acacia crystal was still glowing brighter than a 100 watt bulb. It had been two weeks. Spike wondered why. He wanted to know what made it glow.

Clem was out that night, with a cross around his neck and a stake in his hand. He really didn't want to slay. But he couldn't entirely resist the urge. In his mind, he was just going for a walk before heading in to eat nachos and watch "The Greatest American Hero," which began in 25 minutes. The cross and the stake? He would say he was just being careful. But if he wanted to be careful, why did he choose to take his walk through a cemetery?

Clem heard a woman scream. About fifty yards to his right, a vampire was attacking a young woman of about 20. Seeking out vamps to stake, that was reckless. But here a life was in danger. If Clem walked away, wouldn't that be wrong, even immoral?

So Clem leaped into action. Not to satiate his desire for killing, he believed, but to save a human life. He quickly approach the vampire from behind. "Yo, overbite!," Clem yelled. The vampire, who had only a second earlier plunged his incisors into the woman's neck, turned to confront and eliminate this nuisance. The vampire led with a right hook. The punch was telegraphed, so Clem blocked it with his left arm. With his right he staked the vamp.

Right then Connor arrived. Before heading over to see Dawn, he was killing time by trying to kill a few vampires. Connor was rather shocked to see Clem of all creatures dispatch a vampire with such effortless efficiency.

"Hi Clem," Connor said, tapping him on the back. Clem, a little wired after the fight, shrieked, dropped his stake, and leaped in fear. Then he saw it was Connor and was deeply relieved.

The woman naturally assumed it was Connor who saved her. She ran up and hugged him, telling him "you saved my life." Connor thought this whole scene rather funny. "No I didn't," he told the woman, removing himself from her grip. "Clem did. You should hug Clem."

The woman turned to take a look. Clem meekly smiled. The woman was rather revolted by the appearance of this floppy-skinned demon. She shuddered and ran away. "Hey lady, so much for gratitude!," Clem yelled at her in his tough guy persona. "Next time your life's in danger, maybe I'll just let you become vampire food!"

"I didn't know you hunt," Connor said to Clem.

"Hunt? Me? No, I hate hunting. There's the hunter and the prey, and usually I end up being the prey." 

"That's not what I saw," Connor responded.

"This? This was just me being in the wrong place at the right time. Now, if you excuse me, I want to be to the right place at the right time. My house. Curled up in a blanket. With the doors locked and the windows barred." With that Clem double-timed it out of there.

He realized Connor might have mistakened his curtness for rudeness. So he quickly turned around and said "By the way, nice to see you, Steven. A thousand apologies for not being more friendly. I'm just in a hurry. Have a nice night." Then the reluctant gray vampire hunter went on his way.

Buffy was upstairs at the computer, checking online police blotters and the web sites of local newspapers. Willow and Xander were in the living room talking about the recent revelations.

"I was really beginning to suspect something," Xander admitted. "I mean, what 16 year-old has never watched television, never seen ET' or Ferris Bueller'? He was just so clueless about everything. No kid could be that clueless about all that pop culture stuff. Not even if he was from Utah."

"I have to say, it does explains a lot," Willow responded. "We all knew he was Superboy, but tried to ignore it. At least know we know why he can do what he does."

"I should have known something was amiss about a month ago when Steven got locked out of the building and came up to my apartment by leaping up from balcony to balcony," Xander confessed.

Willow moved on to the juiciest revelation. "Of course, there's one thing we couldn't have seen coming."

Xander knew what she was referring to. "Actually, there were clues. Over and over again, he'd watch that scene from the end of Empire Strikes Back,' the one where Vader says Luke, I am your father.' He must have identified.

Willow asked Xander something that had been on her mind ever since that night. "So how is it, being a surrogate father to Angel's son? Let's face it, the two of you were never exactly hunky dory."

"It's been pretty cool. Now I know we have something in common. We both hate Angel. Wait a sec, did you call me Steven's surrogate father? Yuck! He's, like, only a few years younger than me. I prefer to think of myself as a surrogate big brother."

Xander thought about this. "Okay, okay. That might have come out wrong. That doesn't mean Angel's my surrogate father. God no! What I mean is, Steven sees Holtz as his real father. And the more I hear about this Holtz guy, the more I love him. He did such a great job raising Steven. And he traveled centuries to punish Angel for his crimes. That is so cool! He's like the father I always wish I could have had!"

Dawn got home from visiting Spike. Buffy came downstairs. Less than two minutes later, Connor arrived. Buffy got down to business. "Last night, some people were attacked in the woods in the southeast corner of town. Police said it was wild animals. Knowing this town, I'm guessing it was wild demons. Of course, that's redundant. I want you two to check it out. You know where Ellicott Park is?"

Dawn and Connor smirked. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've heard of the place," Dawn said.

"I've passed through once or twice," Connor added, trying to keep from laughing.

Buffy was unaware of their little joke. "Good. Remember, you're scouting, not slaying. Be careful. I don't want you getting hurt taking on more than you can handle."

"Yeah, play it safe, I get it," Connor answered. "Certainly wouldn't want to get my hands on more than I could handle over in those woods." Dawn elbowed Connor in the ribs. She thought he getting a bit too obvious.

Once again, Buffy didn't notice. "Glad you got it, Steven. I'll cover the center of town, in case this thing comes out into the open."

Willow gave Dawn the tranquilizer gun. "Here Dawny, take this in case you run into trouble. I doubled the size of each dart, so they should have enough tranquilizer to take down whatever crosses your path."

Connor raided Buffy's weapons chest. He got out two axes and two swords, one each for himself and Dawn. Buffy saw Connor arming and worried he would act a little too gung-ho, since that was his style. "Steven, please, be careful. I'm trusting you with Dawn. So don't do anything stupid which will make me regret that decision."

Connor assured Buffy. "Don't worry Buffy. I'll be very careful. Your sister is in good hands." Dawn poked Connor in the ribs with the muzzle of the gun. She thought he had gone overboard with the double entendres.

"Ow. That really hurt," Connor turned and whispered to Dawn.

"Yeah, well, keep it up, funny man, and you'll see what these darts can do," Dawn whispered in Connor's ear. "You think you're cute when you brag. Trust me, you're not." Connor got the point.

After Buffy, Dawn and Connor headed out, Xander and Willow were alone. "Xander, can you come up to my bedroom?," Willow asked. "I have a surprise for you."

Dawn and Connor roamed through the woods. Connor, who of course feared no demon, tried to get a bit frisky. Dawn demurred. "Steven, that's not why we're here. Come on, be serious. I mean, doesn't it freak you out that when we were here this this afternoon, there was something out her which could have attacked us?"

"Actually, that would have just made it more exciting," Connor replied.

"God, what's wrong with you, Steven? I mean, since when did you become such a jerk?"

Right then Connor heard something. He ran off after the sound. Dawn followed, confused and worried. Connor spotted his prey. He spread his legs and crouched close to the ground. He stared at the large, wolf-like creature. It noticed him and charged. When it came close, Connor swung at it with his axe. The creature pulled its head out of the way, and raised its front paws off the ground, clawing the air as if trying to intimidate Connor.

The it leaped forward. Connor moved to his right to avoid the attack. But the creature scratched Connor's left arm, and knocked the ax from Connor's left hand. Dawn was very worried. But when the creature turned to its left and lunged for Connor's throat, he calmy ran his sword through its skull.

But this beast was not alone. Another one dashed out of nowhere while Connor was removing his sword from the dead animal's skull. By the time he noticed this second beast, it was in midair, about to pounce on Connor.

"Steven watch out!," Dawn screamed. She detected this second animal about two seconds before Connor did. She pointed and aimed her gun, and shot the beast when it was in midair, its teeth about two feet from Connor's body.

The dart hit the animal in the chest. It still pounced on Connor and knocked him to the ground. Connor was trapped under the beast's massive weight. But Willow's double-dose of sedatives put the beast out before it could maul Connor. He still held his sword in his right hand, and he stuck it deep into creature's belly. Then he managed to get the heavy corpse off of him.

These creatures were about eight feet in length from head to tail, and about two-and-a-half feet wide from shoulder-to-shoulder. They had red skin covered with yellow-brown fur. along their backs, along the line of their spine, ran large yellow-green spikes. Larger spikes ran along their skulls, like some sort of crest. Their faces most closely resembled those of wolves, while their size and weight were similar to that of tigers.

Dawn ran to Connor, as he slowly got up. He was still a bit stunned from nearly getting ambushed and eaten. "You were right, Dawn, when you said you were going to show me what those darts can do. Great shot."

Then they both heard numerous barks and growls. Connor had learned his lesson and fled with Dawn. They were not pursued. When the noises became softer, Connor turned around. He saw four more of these creatures around the corpses of their dead brethren. Dawn thought he was a fool to linger and grabbed Connor as they took off again. They relaxed and began walking when they were out of the woods.

Xander was with Willow in her bedroom, waiting for his surprise. "I just wanted to give you something as a way of saying thanks for the great time I had at that dance." Willow pulled out a small stuffed animal. Xander was a bit confused. This was not what he had in mind.

"Don't you know what it is?," Willow asked.

"Sure I do. It's a stuffed animal."

"No, silly. Look at the long noise, the big floppy ears. It's a white elephant."

Xander quickly understood what was going on. "Oh no. You heard us. You heard me and Buffy that time."

"It's a pretty small house," Willow told him.

"I'm so sorry. You must think we're the worst, most condescending friends in the world.

"No, no, of course not. You were scared because I was scared. I wasn't ready to talk about all that stuff. That's why I went away. My mother was teaching a summer course at San Francisco State, so I headed up there with her. Why else would I go? You know I don't like spending time with her, much less living with her.

"I needed to get out of this place. Get away from what had poisoned me. I needed to be someplace safe and fresh. I needed to heal, to feel like a person again."

Xander felt this was his cue. "That's the thing. In order for you to heal, you have to talk with me about this. You can't keep going around pretending nothing happened."

Willow took this as an insult. "You think I'm in denial! I'm not. I think about Tara all the time. Every time I walk in this room, I look at the spot where Tara last stood. I remember her eyes, her mouth, everything about that moment. And then I think of everything that followed. How after losing one person I loved, I tried to destroy everyone else I loved."

"Then why can't you share that with me?" Xander asked achingly. "You can't keep all that pain bottled up. I need to help you."

Willow tried to make Xander understand. "Xander, you're my best friend. I love you. You love me. I know you'd do anything to help me. But sometimes you can't. Not every problem can be solved with a talk and a hug and a good cry. Sometimes even your magic can't make everything better."

After walking for a few minutes and recovering from their near-death experience, Connor remembered what Dawn said to him just before he attacked the beasts. "Did you call me a jerk?"

"I didn't say you were a jerk. I said that tonight you had been acting like a jerk."

Connor didn't comprehend the distinction. "So I'm not a jerk, except for tonight?"

"You just haven't been yourself," Dawn answered.

"So who exactly have I been?," Connor asked sarcastically.

"You've been different. I love you because you're sensitive and vulnerable and caring. But tonight, tonight you've been insensitive and callous and self-centered. You haven't been the guy I fell in love with."

"So you don't love me anymore?," a stunned Connor asked.

"Of course I still love you. I just don't like the way you're acting."

Connor had trouble not taking this personally. "You love me. You just don't like me. Is that it?"

With all this talk about how her boyfriend was not acting like himself, Dawn felt like she was in an Avril Lavigne song. Not that she wasn't a fan. But it made her feel like an adolescent cliche, like something out of "Dawson's Creek." This was a new feeling, since Dawn's teenage years had been anything but cliched.

She also realized this was their first fight, and she wanted to end it before either of them got really angry and said something both of them would regret. "Steven, I love you. I don't want to argue with you. Right now, I think I should go home, and you should go home. Right now, we need time apart. Time to think things through."

Dawn walked away. Connor stood still for a few seconds, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Then he walked home, resolving to understand why the love of his life was angry with him.

Buffy quickly realized no demons were invading residential Sunnydale. Not that night, anyway. So she went off to the graveyards to do her usual patrol. Nothing very stimulating. A few vampires here and there. The sort of stuff Buffy could handle in her sleep.

But being around the graveyards, she caught sight of Spike's crypt. The night they embraced, they said nothing to each other. And not a word had past between them since. Buffy knew this was ridiculous.

Spike knew this as well. But he was scared. Whenever he took the offensive in this relationship, it always led to disaster. He didn't want to do anything to make Buffy regret that she had given him another chance. But if Spike continued to sit back and do nothing, he would eventually squander that second chance.

Spike knew Buffy was around. He stepped outside to watch her from a distance. When Spike saw her looking in his direction, he knew this was the moment to act. He began to approach her. She saw him. Buffy slowly approached Spike.

When they were within speaking distance, Spike began. "So Buffy, has our little cold war ended? Are we on speaking terms again?"

Buffy said yes, but in a drawn-out fashion. "I've accepted that you are going to be a part of my life whether I like it or not. So if you must interfere, it would be best if you could tell me exactly what you plan to do before you go off meddling."

"I'll take that as a yes," Spike jokingly replied.

"I'm sorry, Spike. I'm not used to saying nice things to you. I'm trying my best."

"You're doing great," Spike assured her. "We've been talking for thirty seconds and you have yet to hit me. I thing that's some sort of a record."

Spike's joking loosened Buffy up. She even managed a chuckle or two. "What I really want to say is thanks. Thank you, for what you did for Dawn. It was stupid. It was reckless. It was irresponsible. But I'm glad you did it."

Spike was thrilled. But all the time he had spent as Buffy's whipping boy left him too chastened to gloat. "Well then, you're very welcome. I just have a weakness for foolishly romantic gallantry, especially foolishly romantic gallantry which involves getting the living snot beaten out of me."

"I always liked that side of you," Buffy responded with a smile.

"Really?," Spike asked. "Hold on a bloody minute. There's actually a side of me which doesn't fill you with revulsion?"

"Of course. Why else do you think I didn't kill you back when you were a vampire?," Buffy told Spike, only half-joking. "Even then, you had these moments when you were stripped of your cockiness, your unbearable arrogance, and all that was left was a guy who'd endure anything to help someone he cared about."

Spike saw this moment as a turning point. "So it's come to this, pet: at long last, you think I have a sense of decency?"

But Buffy issued a warning. "I've thought you were a decent guy before. But each time, you proved me wrong. Maybe now you can surprise me, show me you really have changed." And with that Buffy left.

Connor was lying awake on Xander's couch, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong. He could still only conceive of actions in terms of good and evil. He believed sin was the root of all suffering. Therefore, he must have sinned to make Dawn mad at him. Now all he had to do was figure out what sin he had committed, and resolve not to commit this sin ever again.

So he went by a little process of elimination. It obviously wasn't sloth, gluttony, envy or avarice. He hadn't felt angry towards Dawn, so it wasn't that. Since he believed Dawn was his one and only love, he could not classify his desire for her as lust. So what was left?

Pride. Yes, it was pride. He knew it. He felt proud because Dawn loved him. The pride led to overweening arrogance, and to his cocky behavior. His taunting of Buffy, his rudeness towards Dawn. This also explained why he nearly got himself killed. Now that Dawn loved him, he felt invincible, like nothing could ever hurt him again. Thus his reckless engagement of the two beasts.

The solution was simple. Connor knew he had to be meeker. He was meek right up until Dawn said she loved him. He had to recapture his humility.

"Why the glumness?," Buffy asked Dawn when both of them had returned home.

"It's Steven. We had a fight."

"Ah yes. Boy trouble," Buffy responded. She knew all about that subject.

"He was different tonight. He wasn't like he was before. It's like, all of a sudden, he's changed."

Buffy jumped to what from her experience seemed to be the logical conclusion. "Oh no. Please, no. You two, you two didn't?"

"Oh come on Buffy. This isn't you we're talking about. My life is not just some replay of your life. I am my own person. You do know that?"

"Sorry Dawn. I didn't mean to sound like I was comparing your life to mine. It's just that guys, in general, have a way of changing, for the worse, after that. Glad to know that's not the case. Whew!, that's a relief."

"Guys act different for all sorts of reasons. Or for no reason at all," Dawn explained. "I'll just have to whip Steven back into shape."

Buffy looked a little worried. "That is just an expression, right? I mean, you're not being literal?"

Dawn looked annoyed. "Of course not! This is me, Dawny, your baby sister. You ask that like you don't even know me anymore."

Spike arrived at work the next morning to find Anya on the phone, chewing out one of her suppliers. "Listen here Jack, the merchandise was supposed to arrive here four days ago. When I make a deal, I expect the other party to uphold their end of the bargain. This is breach of contract. And you know what happens when you breach a contract? You know what happens Jack? You get punished!

"Now I don't care if one of the trucking companies you contract with filed for Chapter 11 and the other one's caught in a labor dispute. That's not my problem. You find someone to get the goods here by tomorrow. What? Full Price! No Jack, I am not paying full price. Time is money. You've wasted my time time, which is very valuable. You get them here tomorrow, I pay eighty cents on the dollar. Day after tomorrow, sixty cents. Day after that, fifty. You just get them here, and consider yourself lucky that I'm paying you and your lousy outfit anything. Kapish?"

Spike knew what was going on. "Anya, since we killed Gardar, have you noticed anything different about yourself?"

"What, what is it?," she asked as she looked in the mirror. "I'm not getting a unibrow, am I? I had those plucked last month."

"I'm not talking about how you look. I'm talking about how you feel."

"How I feel? I guess after I killed him, I felt relieved. Because before that I was convinced you were seeing to it that we were all going to die violently and painfully."

Spike didn't like being reminded of the murder-suicide pact he forced Anya and Clem into. So he tried to move the conversation forward. "Okay then, you're relieved. You feel bloody well lucky to be alive. Now the next day, and the days after that, did you feel bolder? Did killing Gardar make you feel a smidgen invincible?"

"A smidgen invincible? That's like being a little pregnant. You're not making sense."

Spike got to the point. "Ever since that next morning, you've been fearless. At least inside this store. You just chewed out that guy, threatened to do everything except shoot him in the kneecaps. And remember your little run-in with Buffy?"

"Oh that? I was just sticking up for you, Spike."

Spike didn't like to think that he needed people to stick up for him. "You attacked her. You hit her, remember?"

Anya thought this through. "Oh no. Oh no! She's gonna kill me! I mean, I'm a demon, and that's what she does to my kind. What was I thinking?"

"Trust me Anya, she's not going to hurt you. If she wanted to get you, she would have done it last week. Believe me, when she's angry, she doesn't wait. My point is, when you think you're about to die, but you come out unscathed, you start to believe nothing can hurt you. It's only natural. But it's dangerous. Eventually you'll piss off the wrong person and pay the price."

"I get it. Quit while I'm still ahead. Or while I still have a head. But I'm not apologizing, Not to Jack, or to Buffy. They got what they deserved. Especially Buffy. I have to admit, hitting her, that was fun. That was really really fun."

Dawn had told Willow what the monsters looked like. After a few hours of research at the Magic Shop, by early evening Willow had found a match. Dawn confirmed that the illustration in the book was exactly what she and Connor had encountered.

"It's called a Sulla," Willow told Dawn and Buffy. "They travel in packs of six. Since you and Steven killed two, there's four left." Willow read on. "Eww, gross."

"What's gross?," Buffy asked her.

"Dawn, you told me that after you killed two of the Sulla, the others came after you. But they didn't attack, right?"

"Yeah. Steven said it looked like they were protecting the bodies."

"Actually, according to this, they were eating the bodies. It says they do this to absorb the strength of the dead Sulla."

"Yeah, that is gross," Buffy replied. "And kind of sick. Knowing that when you die, you'll be eaten by your friends?"

"One of the benefits of turning to dust when you die," Spike said as he entered the room. "But if the Sulla are in town, they're the least of your worries. The Sulla are only here to mate with the Camillus demon."

"Wait, hold on. Camillus? What's that?," Willow asked.

"Look it up. You can tell me what it is when I get back from rehearsal," Spike told Willow as he left the shop with his guitar.

About an hour later Willow found out what the Camillus was. By then Xander had arrived. Connor was still working up the courage to apologize to Dawn. "Ughh, that's one mean-looking ugly demon," Willow said. Buffy, Dawn and Xander looked at the picture and agreed.

As practice wound up, drummer Sterling had a question for Spike. "The woman you work for, at the store, is she seeing anyone?"

"Anya? You want to ask out Anya?"

"Well, kinda. Yeah, I do. She's caught my eye at some of our shows. And I've seen her at that store on Main. She's kinda cute. She looks interesting."

"Yep, she's interesting. That's putting it mildly," Spike joked.

"But she's available, right?," Sterling asked again.

"She's unattached, if that's what you mean."

"Then you can introduce me to her. But a good word in, right?," Sterling wondered.

First Zooey and Willow. Now Sterling and Anya. "What, you want me to set you up? I'm trying to run a band, not a bloody dating service. Just so we can get this out of our system, is there anybody else who wants to date one of my friends. Aidan? Elise?"

Willow explained what was going to happen. "Says here the Camillus monster emerges from the Hellmouth to breed with the Sulla. And after mating with the Sulla, it devours them whole."

"The things some guys will do to get a little action," Xander joked. Willow and Buffy both looked at him funny. "Hey, I didn't know she was a praying mantis! That was different. I thought she was a woman, the kind of woman who didn't rip your head off afterwards."

By now Anya was with the rest of the gang, and Dawn and Anya wanted to know just what exactly Xander was talking about. Fortunately, Spike did Xander a favor by arriving back just in time to change the subject. "You find your demon?," Spike asked Willow.

"I found it. But if the Camillus is a demon, are the Sulla also demons? I'm just wondering, cause the books don't identify the Sulla as demons.

Spike explained. "The Camillus is almost pure demon. The Sulla are an animal-demon hybrid. There used to be lots of them around here. The early Indians hunted them and wiped them out, along with the rest of the continent's giant animals. The last Camillus retreated into the Hellmouth, along with a few Sulla. They live in the Underworld. But they can't mate there. So every 1,000 years the Camillus comes up here. The Sulla mate with it, and the Camillus gives birth to 600 more Sulla, who ravage the earth for a year before returning to their home. 999 years later, they return to begin the cycle all over again."

Spike had explained too much. Buffy asked him "how do you know all this? If these things only come up every 1,000 years, you've never seen them. So how come you talk about them like Jane Goodal talks about gorillas?"

Spike realized a confession was in order. "Fine Slayer, you got me. Shortly after I first came here, I tried to find a way to coax them up to earth to kill you. When that fell through, I went with Plan B, those bloody awful assassins. Most unoriginal thing I ever did. Not exactly proud of myself for that one."

Everyone was looking at Spike oddly. "Oh don't act so bleeding surprised people! I was evil. We know that. Can we move forward?"

"Can't move in any other direction," Buffy responded. "Want to move forward, tell me something useful. When is the Camillus going to rise."

"Since the Sulla are in town, any day now. Not tonight, though. It only rises when there is no moon in the sky." He quickly checked Anya's calendar on the wall. "No moon is tomorrow night. That's when Camillus will have her coming out party."

Xander had a suggestion. "So we take out the four Sulla tonight. Then tomorrow night, Camillus doesn't get any."

Spike disagreed. "The Sulla are hiding. In the forest, they won't be easy to catch. We go after them on their home pitch, they'll lie in wait, ambush us, and eat us for breakfast. Tonight, we do nothing. The Sulla aren't going to come out and kill anyone. But tomorrow they'll have to venture into the open. Then they'll have nowhere to hide, no chance of surprising us."

"He's right," Buffy told Xander. "We hit them where we can see them. Everyone be hear tomorrow one hour before sundown. We arm heavy. We hit them with everything we've got." Then she realized someone was missing. "Xander, you tell Steven. By the way, why isn't he here?"

"He told me he wanted to go patrolling, to be alone. All day he's been real quiet and brooding."

"Like his father?," Willow asked.

Xander was ready to explode. "No, not like his father! How many times do I have to remind you, he is nothing like his father! It's not like Angel is the only guy that broods. Besides, they brood completely differently. Steven doesn't do the furrowed brow, the worry lines on the forehead, the whole I-got-the-weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders' look. It's a whole other kind of brood. A wide-eyed, innocent, this-world-is-new-to-me' kind of brood."

Xander picked up Connor and told him the news. Connor saw this as a double opportunity – a chance to make up with Dawn and a chance to redeem himself for his careless and sloppy fighting the other night. Both of these problems sprung from the well of excessive pride.

Hunting these demon animals sounded familiar to Connor. After all, he was raised as a hunter-gatherer. Connor didn't know about the early American Indians who hunted these animals to extinction. But Connor and they shared common skills, and a common mindset. They were not afraid of terrifying beasts. They understood life as a contest of kill-or-be-killed. And they knew exactly how to win that contest.

Connor thought back on his Quor-toth days. He knew what he needed – spears. There were four Sulla, meaning he wanted at least four spears. With these he could injure the beasts from a distance and close with them only when they were weakened. He had made plenty of spears. But he knew one day wasn't enough time to make them from scratch.

So first thing the next morning he went to the Magic Shop and scoured their arsenal. They did not have any spears. But they did have several blades about one foot in length which were thick enough to be used as spear points. Then he went to a nearby hardware store and bought four six-foot long rods, each rod three centimeters in diameter. These would be adequate for shafts.

He took these supplies home, sharpened the blades, and figured out how to strongly connect them to the shafts. Then he used a little trick Holtz taught him. He tied a loop of string to each shaft about four feet behind where the blade was attached. When he put his index and middle fingers in the loop and spun the rest of the string around the shaft, it added greatly to the spear's distance, accuracy, and velocity. Putting his fingers in the loops allowed him to use more leverage and apply more force from his wrist when he threw the spear. Looping the string around the shaft caused the spear to spin in a spiral as it flew, increasing range and accuracy.

Holtz probably learned of this technique from reading about ancient Greek peltasts, probably in the works of Xenophon. Holtz used to tell Connor bedtime stories from Xenophon's "Anabasis." This was the story of how Xenophon and 10,000 Greek mercenaries, stranded around Babylon after their employer died in battle, fought their way north and traveled thousands of miles to return home. It's a story of men learning how to survive in an alien environment by adapting to every circumstance they find themselves in. You can forgive Holtz for trying to identify with Xenophon.

But Connor had not thrown a spear in more than six months. So he went outside and tested his abilities. He went to the graveyard and fired at four different trees from fifty paces away. He hit each tree right where he wanted to. He was confident he hadn't lost his touch. Confident, but not overconfident. Confident, but of course not proud.

There was one more thing Connor needed. So he went into the Magic Shop. He went straight to the training room, where he deposited his spears. On the wall he saw two axes. Their handles were short, about 16 inches long, but their blades were heavy. He thought these might be of use.

But he was there for information, not weapons. On the wall of the training room was a large map of Sunnydale, put up by the ever-conscientious Giles. Connor went back into the store's showroom. "Spike, I need you for a minute."

Spike went into the training room. "Do you know where Camillus will rise?," Connor asked him.

"Matter of fact I do," Spike replied. He showed Connor where this spot was on the map.

"Thanks. That's all I need," Connor told Spike. The location Spike pointed to was in the northwest corner of Sunnydale, about three miles from where Connor had encountered the Sulla. He studied the map to figure out what route they would probably take.

Then Connor went out and walked the route for himself. He wanted to figure out exactly where the Sulla would depart from the forest, and where would be the best place to intercept them. He found the part of the forest which was closest to the spot where Spike said Camillus would rise. If the Sulla came out at this location, they would run through a large meadow about 200 yards wide and 300 yards long. Connor believed he had found his ideal hunting ground.

Everyone assembled at the Magic Shop as Buffy had told them to. She outlined her plan. "I go to the spot where Camillus will rise. Since Spike tried to get this thing to kill me, I think it's only fair comes along and helps me kill it. Steven, you and Dawn go find the Sulla and kill them. Xander, you take them there in you truck. You, Willow and Anya will back them up. After the Sulla are dead, the three of you head over to help me."

As they were getting ready, Connor tried to make things right with Dawn. But she spoke first. "Steven, I just want to tell you"

Connor cut her off. "No. First, listen to me. Dawn, I'm sorry about the way I was the other day. You were right. I wasn't myself. I was a jerk. I was selfish and pigheaded and I nearly got myself killed. So, what I mean is, thank you for saving me from that Sulla. And more than that, thank you for saving me from myself, for telling me when I'm screwing up before I can do something I'd never be able to forgive myself for."

Dawn was truly touched. "Now this. This is great. This is the guy I fell in love with. This is the Steven I'll always love." Then she gave him a quick kiss on the lips. Now everything was right once again in Connor's world. He was off to hunt demons with the girl he loved. For him, it really didn't get any better than that.

Xander saw Dawn and Connor make up. When they kissed, for a fraction of a second, for about the length of time it takes two frames of film to pass across a movie screen, he saw Buffy kissing Angel. Xander blinked, did a double take, and looked again. He saw Dawn and Connor. He didn't know what to make of this brief hallucination. He preferred to put it out of his mind, pretend it never happened.

There was something more pressing on Xander's mind at that moment. He went up to Buffy and asked her about Spike. "So is Spike part of the gang again? Am I supposed to go back to acting like he's an okay guy?"

Buffy was not ready to discuss her shifting feelings for Spike with anyone, especially not Xander. So she made light of Spike's inclusion. "If Camillus is going to eat someone, I'd like it to be Spike, rather than someone I care about."

Xander laughed a little. But he knew Buffy was hiding her true feelings. "Sorry about how that came out. I don't want to be insensitive. I'm not trying to criticize you. What I mean is, it's up to you. You were the one he hurt. So if you've forgiven him, then I'll try to forgive him as well."

Dawn was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to make up with Connor. She was planning to apologize for yelling at him, but he cut her off with his own apology. She remembered what Spike had told her about her power, about how she didn't need people to save her because she was too busy saving others.

Dawn walked over to Spike. "I want to thank you for what you said to me the other night. It meant a lot."

"It was nothing," Spike told Dawn. "I was just stating the obvious. So Dawn, does this mean you think I might actually be a good guy?"

"Well, Steven does seem quite fond of you. Maybe he's on to something."

Buffy saw Spike with Dawn, and thought to herself that perhaps Spike had finally become a good person. Maybe he really had changed.

As he walked with Buffy, Spike tried to maintain low expectations. "I have to ask myself, why are we out here, the two of us, alone? It can't possibly be because you enjoy my company. You've made it bloody well clear on plenty of occasions that you don't. And it can't be because of my fighting skills. As you yourself said, I'm powerless. So Buff, is it just because I make good demon fodder?"

"Spike, I am trying to be nice to you. I am trying to treat you like a decent person. But you are not making it very easy."

"With us, nothing is easy," Spike told her. With these five words, he had encapsulated the entire history of their relationship.

Connor told Xander where to drive to. When Xander was 300 yards from the woods, he ordered Xander to stop. "I want you to stay back. You come at them with this thing, and they'll get scared, split up and run-off. Then we'll never be able to catch all of them. Dawn and I will go at them. You back us up."

Xander disagreed. "Steven, don't you think we should go straight at them with everything we got? Two on four, I don't think that's safe."

Connor tried to explain. "Only one thing is on the minds of the Sulla tonight, and it isn't hunting. Each of them wants to get to the Camillus as quick as they can. They don't want to attack. They want to run away. So if any of them gets by the two of us, you run them down."

Connor walked towards the woods with Dawn. He gave her the two throwing axes. He had his four spears. Each of them had a large ax and long sword for close fighting. On the flatbed of Xander's truck, Willow had the tranquilizer gun and Anya had a crossbow and ten incendiary bolts. Since killing Demetrius, the flaming crossbow bolt had become Anya's weapon of choice. Also with them were sundry swords, axes, pikes and stakes.

Connor had Dawn take a position about 200 yards from the forest where she could conceal herself behind a small ridge. Connor himself lay low to the ground about 100 yards ahead of Dawn and 100 yards to her right.

A few minutes later, the four Sulla came galloping out of the forest. Connor got up and threw his first spear, hitting one of the Sulla in its side. Connor ran north across the open field after the other three beasts, who were heading west. He hurled his second spear, hitting another Sulla in its side. As the two remaining Sulla galloped west, Connor worried they were moving out of range. He quickly threw his third spear, hitting one of the Sulla in the thigh.

Connor turned to the left and faced west. The fourth Sulla was between him and Dawn, racing towards her. He flung his final spear eighty yards. It narrowly missed the beast. While Connor was standing still, fretting over this miss, the Sulla he had hit in the thigh came up from behind and ran right through him. Connor went hurtling and spinning through the air.

Dawn stood directly in front of the Sulla Connor had failed to hit. She gripped one of the throwing axes with two hands and let it fly end over end. After releasing the ax, she closed her eyes, not wanting to see the Sulla as it leaped to maul her. A few seconds later, when she realized she was still standing, Dawn opened her eyes. Her ax was imbedded in the Sulla's skull. The beast was shaking its head from side to side, trying to dislodge this unwanted foreign object. Gleeful with her success, Dawn pulled out her sword, walked up beside the Sulla, and beheaded it.

"Am I the only one who's a wee bit frightened by watching Dawn singlehandedly taking down a 600 pound demon?," Xander asked back at the truck.

"No," Willow answered. "I'm throughly wigged. I mean, she's Dawny. But ever since Steven came to town, little Dawny's turned into Dawn the Huntress."

A second Sulla, the one Connor only hit in the thigh, was charging westward. Emboldened by her first success, and confident that she could hit anything that was directly in front of her, Dawn ran to her left and stood in the path of this Sulla. It was charging at full speed with its head down. It was preparing to charge through Dawn as it had charged through Connor, knocking her down like a bowling pin. When the Sulla was about 30 feet away, Dawn threw her second ax. It sailed over the Sulla's head and hit the beast square in the spine, killing it instantly. The Sulla's forward momentum sent its corpse tumbling forward, until it stopped at Dawn's feet.

After tumbling threw the air, Connor landed on his back with a force that would have broken the bones of lesser men. The two remaining Sulla, the ones that were injured the worst by Connor's spears, attacked him now that he was down. They wanted to finish off this threat, this nuisance.

Connor played dead to draw the Sulla closer. When they were almost on top of him, he pulled out his sword and his ax and swung away. Both Sulla were badly cut in the face and neck. They backed away. Connor stood up. Realizing he wouldn't be such and easy kill, the two Sulla's ran away in a northwestward direction.

The Sulla ran along a path which was 100 yards to the north of Dawn and 200 yards to the north of Xander's truck. It was impossible for Dawn to intercept them, and it would be difficult for Xander to catch up to them once the Sulla reached their top speed, which was in excess of 40 mph. But it took them about 100 to 150 yards to accelerate up to this speed. And while they were getting up to speed, Connor had a chance of catching them.

One Sulla was clearly less injured as thus faster than the other. Connor ran after him. Connor could run 25 to 30 mph over short distances, and quickly caught up with the frontrunning Sulla. Then Connor leaped into the air and landed on the animal's back. Once on top of the galloping beast, Connor plunged his sword into its back. The animal fell to the ground. Connor stabbed it three more times, and it was dead.

While Connor lay on top of this dead Sulla, the final beast approached him at high speed. Connor did not try to get out of its way. With his sword stuck in the dead Sulla he was on top of, Connor pulled out his ax. When the one remaining Sulla collided with Connor, he used the ax to slice its belly. It was a very inelastic collision, and Connor and the Sulla literally stuck together. Connor was pushed forward by the beast's momentum, and man and beast tumbled forward together. When they stopped tumbling, Connor stood up and drove his ax into the Sulla's back, nearly cutting it in half.

"It's comforting to know that I'm living with a houseguest who could take down a wildebeest or a lion or even a komodo dragon with his bare hands, should it ever come to that. I bet he'd be very good at scaring away bill collectors" Xander joked. With the Sulla dead, he headed over to help Buffy with the Camillus.

When Buffy laid eyes on the Camillus, she found it to be bizarre even by demon standards. It appeared to be some sort of fusion between an arthropod and a mammal. It had six legs and a head, thorax and abdomen. When it stood on all six legs, it walked like a spider. But it could rise up and stand on its two hind legs, using its other four limbs as arms. When it stood up, it reached eleven feet in height. At the ends of its limbs were three-toed hoofs with three razor-sharp blades at the bottom of each hoof. When threatened, the Camillus could stand up and use the hoof blades on its four arms to cut apart anything which threatened it.

"Any clue how to kill this thing?," Buffy asked Spike.

"Stab it through the heart," he replied.

"Stake through the heart?," Buffy asked as a means of clarification.

"Steel sword, wooden stake, plastic bloody spork. Take your pick," Spike answered.

When it was still walking like a spider, Buffy approached the Camillus. She wielded a large sword and intended to chop off its legs. When she came close to the demon, it stood up to its full height, easily dwarfing Buffy. The demon swung her arms at Buffy and Buffy retreated. "I understand, really, I sympathize," Buffy told the demon. "With a face and a body like that you're bound to be resentful."

The face of the Camillus was much more mammalian that insect. It was about two feet tall and 16 inches wide. It was elliptical and hairy, with two large green eyes and flaring nostrils. Four incisors emerged out of its mouth like fangs.

Spike pulled out his ax and tried to attack its legs. If he kept crouched low to the ground, the tall demon's arms could not reach him. Problem was, the Camillus had quite a kick. When Spike was about to chop at its left leg, that leg kicked forward and sent Spike flying backward.

Buffy flew in the air, kicked the demon in its midsection and then ducked and retreated to avoid its counterattacks. She then pulled out her sword. When the Camillus saw the weapon, it swung at her. Buffy was expecting this. She dodged the blows. While the demon's arms were stretched out trying the hit her, she moved in close and slashed the demon in the abdomen. The Camillus screamed, pull back its lower right arm, swung it downward, and slashed Buffy in the cheek. As the Camillus swung its lower left arm at Buffy, she did a backflip to maneuver out of the demon's range.

Spike went over to Buffy to have a word. "Any idea what to do about this Vishnu wannabe?," he asked her.

"How about we work together for a change," Buffy told him. "We attack together, you draw its fire, I go to work. It can't take us both at once."

"Beg to differ pet," Spike responded. "It has four arms. We have four arms. It's tailor-made to take us both on at once."

"Just shut up and show me what you're good for and take a beating," an exasperated Buffy snapped at Spike.

"Sure, if that's all you think I'm bloody well good for," Spike snapped back.

The Camillus did not attack. Like the Sulla, it had only one thing on its mind, and it wasn't hunting. It was content to wait for its mates and only attack the insolent humans if they were rude enough to attack it. After living for 11,000 years, the Camillus did not think humans were worth the effort of a hunt.

Buffy and Spike approached, each with an ax in one hand and a sword in the other. Spike attacked first. The Camillus bent down, placed its mouth about two feet directly above Spike's head, and let out a screeching roar. The noise cause Spike to flinch. Then the Camillus slashed him across the chest with its lower right arm. Spike crouched down. He swung at the demon's abdomen with his sword. But before he could land a blow, the Camillus pummelled him in the back with its upper right arm, then with its upper left arm.

Buffy tried to make headway while the demon was focused on Spike. But the Camillus swung its lower left arm at the ax Buffy held in her right hand. The blades on the arm's hoof cut the ax's wooden shaft in two. Buffy grabbed her sword with both hands and tried to cut off the demon's lower left arm. The Camillus pulled this arm back out of harm's way, and Buffy swung at air. The demon struck Buffy on the top of her head with its upper left arm, then kicked her away with its left leg. Then, with its right leg, it kicked Spike. Spike tumbled backwards on the ground, rolling head over heels.

Buffy and Spike got up. Spike pulled out a white canister and said "time to pull out the big guns."

Buffy looked at the canister. "Hairspray?," she asked.

"No love," Spike answered. "Flame thrower."

If cutting the Camillus's limbs didn't work, then burning them was worth a try. Spike approached the demon with renewed confidence. "Hello Camilla. I'm one of your old gentleman callers. You're about to learn that I don't take rejection very well."

Spike approached Camillus with the canister in his right hand and a lighter in his left. When she swung at him with her lower right arm, her hoof was singed with a blast of fire. The same happened when she swung for Spike with her upper left arm.

Buffy saw this was her chance. She approached, ducked under the demon's swinging lower left arm, and stabbed her in the thorax. Camillus tried to level Buffy with a chop delivered with her upper right arm, but Spike hit the arm with a burst of flame before the blow could connect.

Realizing she was in trouble, Camillus flipped backwards so all six of her limbs were on the ground, but with the arms behind the legs. Then she picked her legs up, flipped them around, and stood on all sixes, her head facing Buffy and Spike. The cascading limbs flowed almost poetically, with a balletic effortlessness. Even though she was hideous-looking, Camillus was capable of graceful movements now and then.

Down on all sixes Camillus was very agile and quick. Spike approached to burn her limbs, and she retreated backwards. Buffy came at her, and she maneuvered side-to-side. Buffy was able to use her own formidable quickness to close with the demon and swing for one of her limbs in an attempt to sever it. But Camillus merely raised the limb in the air, causing Buffy to miss with her sword. Then Camillus bent that limb back and kicked Buffy in the chest, sending her ten feet backwards.

Spike realized going for the limbs when the Camillus was hunched on the ground was fruitless. He decided to use the demon's quickness against it. He knew that the demon could run him down if it wanted to. So he decided to coax Camillus into trying to do just that.

Spike stood right in front of the demon, about thirty feet away, and stared it down. Buffy had an inkling of what Spike was up to, so she positioned herself about 15 feet behind Camillus. She figured that while Spike was distracting the demon she could take it down from behind.

Camillus scampered towards Spike, who did not move. Buffy closed with Camillus from behind. Spike let the demon's front legs pass him by. When the demon's face was about two feet from his own, Spike sent out a burst of flame, badly burning Camillus's puss.

Buffy leaped onto the demon's abdomen. The injured Camillus rose on her two hind legs. Buffy held on. She pulled out her sword and plunged it through the demon's heart. Spike saw the tip of the blade emerge out the front of Camillus. The demon's hind legs crumbled beneath the weight of her body, and she fell apart and crumbled to earth in pieces.

Anya told Xander to stop the truck. "It's over," she told him.

"What's over?," he asked.

"The fight. Camillus is dead. She just gave off her death rattle."

"Her what?," Xander asked.

"It's a very low frequency noise some demons utter when they croak. It can only be heard by other demons, and elephants, and I think some whales. But she's done for."

"Boy, we were sure helpful tonight, weren't we?," Willow said with a little disappointment.

"Yeah, it is kind of a letdown," Anya added in agreement. "We got all these weapons, and nothing to do."

"The night is still young," Willow replied.

Anya knew what to do. "You're right. We're all loaded up. We got the slayermobile. Let's go burn and dust ourselves some vampires!"

"That's a great idea!," Willow concurred.

"We'll be like Thelma and Louise," Anya concluded.

Xander had seen the movie, and wasn't pleased with the parallel. "Uh, ladies, this is my truck, remember? So no killing of any ex-boyfriends, okay? And I'm not driving off any cliffs."

Spike threw his hairspray can onto Camillus's remains. Then he flicked on his Zippo and threw it next to the can. As he and Buffy walked away, the can exploded, blowing Camillus into little gooey unidentifiable bits.

"Ya gotta admit Slayer, we make a quite the team," Spike told Buffy.

"We weren't so bad," Buffy told him. "You surprised me. You were able to distract that monster without getting beaten to a pulp." They stopped walking. Buffy looked at Spike. "Looks like you walked away with only these scratches on you chest."

Buffy put her left hand to Spike's wound. Spike put his left hand to the cuts on Buffy's cheek. Buffy realized what was about to happen and pulled back. "Anyway, what I mean is," she stammered while trying to change the subject.

"What you mean is it went well," Spike said, finishing her sentence.

"Yeah. Exactly. It went well," Buffy said in agreement.

"The others must have killed all the Sulla by now," Spike explained. "If any of them were still alive, they would have made it here by now."

"Everything wrapped up nicely," Buffy added. "A perfect night."

Buffy stood still to think about what these words of hers meant. Spike walked about ten feet before realizing Buffy wasn't following him. He turned around and looked at her. "Buffy, is everything okay?" 

In the silence of the next few seconds Spike realized what was about to happen. A perfect night for the two of them could only end one way. And Spike knew this night was not the time for their perfect night.

Buffy ran towards Spike, put her arms around him, and kissed him passionately on the lips. To her outmost surprise, he pushed her away.

"Buffy this is very wrong," Spike pleaded. "I love you more than anything, but that's why this can't happen. Not now. Not when you don't know the truth."

"I finally understand the truth," Buffy responded. "You loved me, and I wanted you, but I could never love you because you didn't have a soul. But now you love me, and you have a soul, and I can finally love you."

After saying what Spike had been waiting for two years to hear, Buffy leaped up onto Spike, her fingers caressing his hair, her legs wrapped around his waist. But Spike gave no reaction, standing like an English Bobby.

He tried to explain. "No Buffy, you don't know the truth. I haven't been completely honest with you. If we go through with this right now you'll never forgive me."

As Spike tried to be stoic Buffy started to aggressively nibble at his right ear. Spike could no longer be stoic. "Oh, Oh my. Oh, Buffy, you have no idea how much I've missed this. No idea at all. Oh, oh yes. But I am living a lie."

"Living a lie? You said you were human. I can feel your heart beating inside your chest. It's pounding. Your blood's racing." After saying this she bit him in the neck.

"Now Buffy. You know how much I loved it when you did this when I was a vampire. But I'm not anymore. Whoa, good golly miss Slayer! I love it even more now! But this is precisely why this must stop. You must believe me, as much as it truly, truly pains me to do this." Spike grabbed Buffy at the waist, lifted her body away from his, and threw her to the ground.

Buffy was stunned beyond reckoning. "You refusing me! You!! Refusing me!!! What is wrong with you, Spike?!! Is this some trick? Do you want me to know how you have felt? Well, fine! Shoe's on the other bleeding foot! Does that make you bloody happy? Are you happy to see me upset, to see me humiliated!?

"Oh, no. Now this is great. I'm crying. You made me cry. So there! Here's your proof, your blooding bleedy proof as you would say. I loved Angel, and he made me cry. I loved Riley, and he made me cry. And now you, some loser ex-vamp, who I could have staked whenever I wanted but never did because I thought you weren't worth the effort. You of all people, a little weak lost man, a stockboy who works for minimum wage and can't even afford his own apartment. Pathetic, more-than-a-century-old you. I'm crying because of you!"

"You sure know how to make a bloke feel special," Spike ruefully responded to Buffy's heartfelt yet insulting declaration of love. Then he noticed she was still on the ground crying. She really was in pain.

Spike got down on the ground and hugged her. "Please don't cry, Buffy. I never want to make you cry. I live to have the chance to make you happy. But what you want, right now, will not make you happy. Afterwards, you will find out the truth. And then you will wish you had staked me."

Buffy was not ready to comprehend what Spike meant. She had been on too much of an emotional roller coaster. She had come to the Earth-shattering realization that she loved Spike, only to have him refuse her moments later. It was like the chorus of the Leonard Cohen song Willow saw Spike sing at the coffeeshop:

"Just take this longing from my tongue,

all the useless things my hands have done.

Let me see your beauty broken down.

Like would do, for one you love."

Spike now saw Buffy broken down. She didn't know what she felt. But she needed to be close to Spike. She put her arms around him, holding him close, and sobbing on his shoulder.

Spike knew Buffy would have to regain her composure before he could tell her what he needed to tell her. But this was new territory for Spike. He was used to making Buffy mad. But he had never made her cry.All he could think of doing was to hum the melody to the Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing," like he was humming some sort of lullaby.

After a number of powerful sniffles, which left quite a bit of mucus on Spike's leather jacket, Buffy did stop sobbing. She looked Spike in the eye and touched her forehead to his forehead. "Spike, can I ask you a question? Be honest. Are you afraid that now that you're human I'll be disappointed? Are you a little scared you'll no longer be, well, you know, a demon in the sack?"

"Oh, what a sweet, considerate, loving question," Spike answered as he kissed her gently on the tip of her nose. "But that is not the reason I did the unthinkable and pushed you away. I did that because of something far, far more important. Now Buffy, pet, love. My gorgeous, wonderful Slayer. The woman who gives my life meaning. Oh, no. No. Now I'm the one who is crying. Hearing you say you love me, after all this time. You can't know what this means to me!"

And now the roles reversed once again. Spike cried on Buffy's shoulder, his tears falling on her leather jacket.

"This is the most bizarre moment of my life," Buffy told him. "And you know that from me that is saying a lot. An awful, awful lot.

Both of them managed to laugh weakly. They realized the absurd truth in what Buffy had just said. "I guess this is our first tender moment," Spike told Buffy. "The two of us sitting on the grass, in each other's arms, crying and laughing together. This is what I have wanted since I returned."

Then Spike put his hand under Buffy's chin and looked deeply into her eyes. "But before this can go any further, there is something I must tell you. As much as this pains me, I must let go of you before I can begin to explain. I am scared to let go, because after I tell you the truth I fear you will never let me hold you again. But that is the way it will have to be."

Spike let go and stood up. Buffy followed suit. Spike took a few steps back from her, but Buffy followed him. He told her "for me to say what I must, you have to be at least five paces away. That way, if you try to kill me, I'll have time to beg for my life."

Buffy complied and backed away. She was as confused as ever. "Fine," she said. "Tell me your big news. But after everything we have been through, everything you have done to me, and tried to do to me, I cannot imagine anything you can tell me which could change how I feel about you."

And now Spike began. "Well, here goes." He took a deep, tremulous breath. "When I left here and went to Africa, I wasn't trying to regain my soul. I went to that demon so he could remove the chip in my brain. I wanted to be the Big Bad once again. I wanted to kill people. I wanted to hurt you."

Buffy looked a bit upset. But not too upset. After all, this was Spike. This was vampire Spike. She was used to him wanting to kill her.

"I was put through some tests – the usual gladiator punch-and-judy show. When I had survived them I was told my wish would be granted. I said make me what I once was so that I can give Buffy what she deserves.' Like they say, be careful what you wish for, cause boy you bloody well might get it.

"I was human again, and I was in agony. I was furious with the demon. I told him this was not what I wanted. I passed your crummy tests, and this is how you reward me? By taking all of my power away! By making me even more impotent than I already was!?'

"The demon gave some sappy speech about how I could be more powerful than I ever was, some treacle about the power of love. Crazy stuff to hear from a demon. And corny stuff to hear from anyone.

"So I tell im Enough of this Hallmark crap, Mr. Wizard. That is not what I want. That is not what I have earned.' And then something occurred to me. You stupid git,' I told im. I'm gonna get back what you stole from me.'

"But Mr. Wizard said that is impossible.' I laughed, told him watch me,' and left. I ran out of that cave, looking for a vampire. I was not terribly familiar with the locations of lairs in West Africa. It took me three nights, but I found a vampire in a squatter settlement in Dakar. She bit me, and she became dust.

"I tried it twice more. Each time, the vampire drank my blood and dropped dead. I knew what that crafty demon with the sick sense of humor meant. He made my blood poison for vampires. Didn't want to see his little creation tampered with."

Buffy realized how Spike killed Drusilla. Actually, she realized Spike did not actively kill Drusilla. He passively let her kill herself. Knowing this, Spike's killing of his sire looked a lot less heroic to Buffy.

Spike continued. "For the first time, I accepted that I was human. I hated myself for it. I was a failure, I had allowed myself to lose everything that made me special. Even worse, I started to have those gawdawful Angel Moments, when I was tormented by my past deeds. I was saturated by pain. I drank to dull it, but this didn't help. Even when I passed out drunk I saw my victims in my dreams. There was no escape.

"But somewhere in a dive in Cameroon, I started to laugh. Heart of Darkness.' Bloody Heart of Darkness.' The horror, the horror, and all that jazz. I was Kurtz. I thought of Brando in Apocalypse Now.' I imagined myself like him: bald, fat, surrounded by maniacs. I was not tragic; I was absurd. My life, my journey, my humanity was one big existential joke, and I was in on it. So long as I could laugh at myself, I couldn't kill myself. To end your life, you have to take yourself seriously.

"I hired myself off as a deck hand on a cargo ship. Bummed around the South Pacific. Learned again what sunburn was. Got onto a fishing ship going East. Somewhere on the ocean, as I was gutting salmon, I remembered you.

"After I got my soul, I was so full of rage and pain that you never entered my mind. This was the first time I thought of you after I became human. All I could feel was love. It was not like before, not just longing and lust and jealousy. It was divine, like I had been touched by God."

Buffy knew of only one way to reply to this heartfelt soliloquy. "Your were up to your elbows in fish guts, and that's the moment you think of me? You sure know how to make a girl feel special."

"Please Buffy. My heart is in your hands."

"Your heart is in my hands? Do you have any idea how disgusting that sounds? You give me your around-the-world-in 80-days story, Spike's journey into the center of his soul, and, oh by the way, if everything had gone right you would have killed me and all my friends by now. You don't expect to hear that after you tell a person you love them, even if you have as twisted a love life as I do.

"And your African cave demon. What is he, some glorified relationship counselor? Gee Spike, I know you're angry and want to kill, but isn't that just because you need to be loved?' Well, you know what? You're not what I deserve. I deserve a lot better than you."

Spike was finally moved to defend himself. "You deserve someone who would risk his life for you. Someone who wouldn't keep things from you. Someone who wouldn't take advantage of you. Someone who would risk everything to tell you the truth. Oh, wait a minute. That someone is me."

Buffy found this to be outrageous. "You really haven't changed. You still want credit for not doing the despicable thing. You want to be praised for being less of a scoundrel than you used to be. But I'm glad you came clean. It's good you told me told me the truth before I did anything I would later regret. It's good for your own sake. Because if I found out after, I might have killed you. At the very least, I would have sent Anya after you. I'm going home now. Don't follow me. Don't try to contact me. I'll contact you. If I want to. If."

Spike was relieved. He had planned this moment in his mind for months. He imagined how Buffy could react. This was a lot better than most of his hypothetical reactions. Buffy did not react with rage. This gave Spike hope that he had not lost her.

But he had not won her either. Back home, Spike needed to listen to something depressing. So he put on the second disc from Bruce Springsteen's "The River." One verse from "The Price You Pay" especially stuck with him:

"Now they'd come so far and they'd waited so long

Just to end up caught in a dream where everything goes wrong

Where the dark of night holds back the light of day

And you've gotta stand and fight for the price you pay."

Spike wondered if this was not another of the cave Demon's cruel tricks. After all, demons aren't known for their predilection to provide humans with happiness. They like to cause humans misery. Maybe this was Spike's destiny. Perhaps he was doomed to glimpse the promise land but never enter it.

Buffy walked home torn by the conflicting emotions of anger and regret. She knew she had overestimated Spike, falsely assumed him to be a hero, a good guy. But she also knew she could not simply assume Spike had not changed at all for the better. All those things he told her, he could have taken to his grave. He never had to tell her the real reason he went to Africa. No one would have ever revealed his secret. The old Spike would have said nothing and happily had his way with Buffy. Why did the new Spike act differently?


End file.
